Structural formula for butane. Examples of other chemical formulas for butane are the empirical formula C2H5, the molecular formula C4H10 and the condensed (or semi-structural) formula CH3CH2CH2CH3.

A chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, such as parentheses, dashes, brackets, commas and plus (+) and minus (−) signs. These are limited to a single typographic line of symbols, which may include subscripts and superscripts. A chemical formula is not a chemical name, and it contains no words. Although a chemical formula may imply certain simple chemical structures, it is not the same as a full chemical structural formula. Chemical formulas can fully specify the structure of only the simplest of molecules and chemical substances, and are generally more limited in power than are chemical names and structural formulas.

The simplest types of chemical formulas are called empirical formulas, which use letters and numbers indicating the numerical proportions of atoms of each type. Molecular formulas indicate the simple numbers of each type of atom in a molecule, with no information on structure. For example, the empirical formula for glucose is CH2O (twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon and oxygen), while its molecular formula is C6H12O6 (12 hydrogen atoms, six carbon and oxygen atoms).

Sometimes a chemical formula is complicated by being written as a condensed formula (or condensed molecular formula, occasionally called a "semi-structural formula"), which conveys additional information about the particular ways in which the atoms are chemically bonded together, either in covalent bonds, ionic bonds, or various combinations of these types. This is possible if the relevant bonding is easy to show in one dimension. An example is the condensed molecular/chemical formula for ethanol, which is CH3-CH2-OH or CH3CH2OH. However, even a condensed chemical formula is necessarily limited in its ability to show complex bonding relationships between atoms, especially atoms that have bonds to four or more different substituents.

Since a chemical formula must be expressed as a single line of chemical element symbols, it often cannot be as informative as a true structural formula, which is a graphical representation of the spatial relationship between atoms in chemical compounds (see for example the figure for butane structural and chemical formulas, at right). For reasons of structural complexity, there is no condensed chemical formula (or semi-structural formula) that specifies glucose (and there exist many different molecules, for example fructose and mannose, that have the same molecular formulaC6H12O6 as glucose). Linear equivalent chemical names exist that can and do specify any complex structural formula (see chemical nomenclature), but such names must use many terms (words), rather than the simple element symbols, numbers, and simple typographical symbols that define a chemical formula.

Chemical formulas may be used in chemical equations to describe chemical reactions and other chemical transformations, such as the dissolving of ionic compounds into solution. While, as noted, chemical formulas do not have the full power of structural formulas to show chemical relationships between atoms, they are sufficient to keep track of numbers of atoms and numbers of electrical charges in chemical reactions, thus balancing chemical equations so that these equations can be used in chemical problems involving conservation of atoms, and conservation of electric charge.

Overview

A chemical formula identifies each constituent element by its chemical symbol and indicates the proportionate number of atoms of each element. In empirical formulas, these proportions begin with a key element and then assign numbers of atoms of the other elements in the compound, by ratios to the key element. For molecular compounds, these ratio numbers can all be expressed as whole numbers. For example, the empirical formula of ethanol may be written C2H6O because the molecules of ethanol all contain two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen atom. Some types of ionic compounds, however, cannot be written with entirely whole-number empirical formulas. An example is boron carbide, whose formula of CBn is a variable non-whole number ratio with n ranging from over 4 to more than 6.5.

When the chemical compound of the formula consists of simple molecules, chemical formulas often employ ways to suggest the structure of the molecule. These types of formulas are variously known as molecular formulas and condensed formulas. A molecular formula enumerates the number of atoms to reflect those in the molecule, so that the molecular formula for glucose is C6H12O6 rather than the glucose empirical formula, which is CH2O. However, except for very simple substances, molecular chemical formulas lack needed structural information, and are ambiguous.

For simple molecules, a condensed (or semi-structural) formula is a type of chemical formula that may fully imply a correct structural formula. For example, ethanol may be represented by the condensed chemical formula CH3CH2OH, and dimethyl ether by the condensed formula CH3OCH3. These two molecules have the same empirical and molecular formulas (C2H6O), but may be differentiated by the condensed formulas shown, which are sufficient to represent the full structure of these simple organic compounds.

Condensed chemical formulas may also be used to represent ionic compounds that do not exist as discrete molecules, but nonetheless do contain covalently bound clusters within them. These polyatomic ions are groups of atoms that are covalently bound together and have an overall ionic charge, such as the sulfate [SO4]2− ion. Each polyatomic ion in a compound is written individually in order to illustrate the separate groupings. For example, the compound dichlorine hexoxide has an empirical formula ClO3, and molecular formula Cl2O6, but in liquid or solid forms, this compound is more correctly shown by an ionic condensed formula [ClO2]+[ClO4]−, which illustrates that this compound consists of [ClO2]+ ions and [ClO4]− ions. In such cases, the condensed formula only need be complex enough to show at least one of each ionic species.

Chemical formulas as described here are distinct from the far more complex chemical systematic names that are used in various systems of chemical nomenclature. For example, one systematic name for glucose is (2R,3S,4R,5R)-2,3,4,5,6-pentahydroxyhexanal. This name, interpreted by the rules behind it, fully specifies glucose's structural formula, but the name is not a chemical formula as usually understood, and uses terms and words not used in chemical formulas. Such names, unlike basic formulas, may be able to represent full structural formulas without graphs.

Empirical formula

In chemistry, the empirical formula of a chemical is a simple expression of the relative number of each type of atom or ratio of the elements in the compound. Empirical formulas are the standard for ionic compounds, such as CaCl2, and for macromolecules, such as SiO2. An empirical formula makes no reference to isomerism, structure, or absolute number of atoms. The term empirical refers to the process of elemental analysis, a technique of analytical chemistry used to determine the relative percent composition of a pure chemical substance by element.

For example, hexane has a molecular formula of C6H14, or structurally CH3CH2CH2CH2CH2CH3, implying that it has a chain structure of 6 carbon atoms, and 14 hydrogen atoms. However, the empirical formula for hexane is C3H7. Likewise the empirical formula for hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, is simply HO expressing the 1:1 ratio of component elements. Formaldehyde and acetic acid have the same empirical formula, CH2O. This is the actual chemical formula for formaldehyde, but acetic acid has double the number of atoms.

Molecular formula

Molecular formulas indicate the simple numbers of each type of atom in a molecule of a molecular substance. They are the same as empirical formulas for molecules that only have one atom of a particular type, but otherwise may have larger numbers. An example of the difference is the empirical formula for glucose, which is CH2O (ratio 1:2:1), while its molecular formula is C6H12O6 (number of atoms 6:12:6). For water, both formulas are H2O. A molecular formula provides more information about a molecule than its empirical formula, but is more difficult to establish.

The connectivity of a molecule often has a strong influence on its physical and chemical properties and behavior. Two molecules composed of the same numbers of the same types of atoms (i.e. a pair of isomers) might have completely different chemical and/or physical properties if the atoms are connected differently or in different positions. In such cases, a structural formula is useful, as it illustrates which atoms are bonded to which other ones. From the connectivity, it is often possible to deduce the approximate shape of the molecule.

A condensed chemical formula may represent the types and spatial arrangement of bonds in a simple chemical substance, though it does not necessarily specify isomers or complex structures. For example, ethane consists of two carbon atoms single-bonded to each other, with each carbon atom having three hydrogen atoms bonded to it. Its chemical formula can be rendered as CH3CH3. In ethylene there is a double bond between the carbon atoms (and thus each carbon only has two hydrogens), therefore the chemical formula may be written: CH2CH2, and the fact that there is a double bond between the carbons is implicit because carbon has a valence of four. However, a more explicit method is to write H2C=CH2 or less commonly H2C::CH2. The two lines (or two pairs of dots) indicate that a double bond connects the atoms on either side of them.

A triple bond may be expressed with three lines (HC≡CH) or three pairs of dots (HC:::CH), and if there may be ambiguity, a single line or pair of dots may be used to indicate a single bond.

Molecules with multiple functional groups that are the same may be expressed by enclosing the repeated group in round brackets. For example, isobutane may be written (CH3)3CH. This condensed structural formula implies a different connectivity from other molecules that can be formed using the same atoms in the same proportions (isomers). The formula (CH3)3CH implies a central carbon atom connected to one hydrogen atom and three CH3 groups. The same number of atoms of each element (10 hydrogens and 4 carbons, or C4H10) may be used to make a straight chain molecule, n-butane: CH3CH2CH2CH3.

Law of composition

In any given chemical compound, the elements always combine in the same proportion with each other. This is the law of constant composition.

The law of constant composition says that, in any particular chemical compound, all samples of that compound will be made up of the same elements in the same proportion or ratio. For example, any water molecule is always made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in a 2:1 ratio. If we look at the relative masses of oxygen and hydrogen in a water molecule, we see that 94% of the mass of a water molecule is accounted for by oxygen and the remaining 6% is the mass of hydrogen. This mass proportion will be the same for any water molecule.[1]

Chemical names in answer to limitations of chemical formulas

The alkene called but-2-ene has two isomers, which the chemical formula CH3CH=CHCH3 does not identify. The relative position of the two methyl groups must be indicated by additional notation denoting whether the methyl groups are on the same side of the double bond (cis or Z) or on the opposite sides from each other (trans or E). Such extra symbols violate the rules for chemical formulas, and begin to enter the territory of more complex naming systems.[citation needed]

Polymers in condensed formulas

For polymers in condensed chemical formulas, parentheses are placed around the repeating unit. For example, a hydrocarbon molecule that is described as CH3(CH2)50CH3, is a molecule with fifty repeating units. If the number of repeating units is unknown or variable, the letter n may be used to indicate this formula: CH3(CH2)nCH3.

Ions in condensed formulas

For ions, the charge on a particular atom may be denoted with a right-hand superscript. For example, Na+, or Cu2+. The total charge on a charged molecule or a polyatomic ion may also be shown in this way. For example: H3O+ or SO42−. Note that + and - are used in place of +1 and -1, respectively.

For more complex ions, brackets [ ] are often used to enclose the ionic formula, as in [B12H12]2−, which is found in compounds such as Cs2[B12H12]. Parentheses ( ) can be nested inside brackets to indicate a repeating unit, as in [Co(NH3)6]3+Cl3−. Here, (NH3)6 indicates that the ion contains six NH3 groups bonded to cobalt, and [ ] encloses the entire formula of the ion with charge +3.[further explanation needed]

This is strictly optional; a chemical formula is valid with or without ionization information, and Hexamminecobalt(III) chloride may be written as [Co(NH3)6]3+Cl3− or [Co(NH3)6]Cl3. Brackets, like parentheses, behave in chemistry as they do in mathematics, grouping terms together – they are not specifically employed only for ionization states. In the latter case here, the parentheses indicate 6 groups all of the same shape, bonded to another group of size 1 (the cobalt atom), and then the entire bundle, as a group, is bonded to 3 chlorine atoms. In the former case, it is clearer that the bond connecting the chlorines is ionic, rather than covalent.

Isotopes

Although isotopes are more relevant to nuclear chemistry or stable isotope chemistry than to conventional chemistry, different isotopes may be indicated with a prefixed superscript in a chemical formula. For example, the phosphate ion containing radioactive phosphorus-32 is [32PO4]3−. Also a study involving stable isotope ratios might include the molecule 18O16O.

A left-hand subscript is sometimes used redundantly to indicate the atomic number. For example, 8O2 for dioxygen, and 168O2 for the most abundant isotopic species of dioxygen. This is convenient when writing equations for nuclear reactions, in order to show the balance of charge more clearly.

Trapped atoms

The @ symbol (at sign) indicates an atom or molecule trapped inside a cage but not chemically bound to it. For example, a buckminsterfullerene (C60) with an atom (M) would simply be represented as MC60 regardless of whether M was inside the fullerene without chemical bonding or outside, bound to one of the carbon atoms. Using the @ symbol, this would be denoted M@C60 if M was inside the carbon network. A non-fullerene example is [As@Ni12As20]3−, an ion in which one As atom is trapped in a cage formed by the other 32 atoms.

This notation was proposed in 1991[2] with the discovery of fullerene cages (endohedral fullerenes), which can trap atoms such as La to form, for example, La@C60 or La@C82. The choice of the symbol has been explained by the authors as being concise, readily printed and transmitted electronically (the at sign is included in ASCII, which most modern character encoding schemes are based on), and the visual aspects suggesting the structure of an endohedral fullerene.

Non-stoichiometric chemical formulas

Chemical formulas most often use integers for each element. However, there is a class of compounds, called non-stoichiometric compounds, that cannot be represented by small integers. Such a formula might be written using decimal fractions, as in Fe0.95O, or it might include a variable part represented by a letter, as in Fe1–xO, where x is normally much less than 1.

General forms for organic compounds

A chemical formula used for a series of compounds that differ from each other by a constant unit is called a general formula. It generates a homologous series of chemical formulas. For example, alcohols may be represented by the formula CnH(2n + 1)OH (n ≥ 1), giving the homologs methanol, ethanol, propanol for n=1–3.

Hill system

The Hill system (or Hill notation) is a system of writing empirical chemical formulas, molecular chemical formulas and components of a condensed formula such that the number of carbonatoms in a molecule is indicated first, the number of hydrogen atoms next, and then the number of all other chemical elements subsequently, in alphabetical order of the chemical symbols. When the formula contains no carbon, all the elements, including hydrogen, are listed alphabetically.

By sorting formulas according to the number of atoms of each element present in the formula according to these rules, with differences in earlier elements or numbers being treated as more significant than differences in any later element or number—like sorting text strings into lexicographical order—it is possible to collate chemical formulas into what is known as Hill system order.

A list of formulas in Hill system order is arranged alphabetically, as above, with single-letter elements coming before two-letter symbols when the symbols begin with the same letter (so "B" comes before "Be", which comes before "Br").[4]

The following example formulae are written using the Hill system, and listed in Hill order:

1.
Chemical element
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A chemical element or element is a species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei. There are 118 elements that have identified, of which the first 94 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 24 being synthetic elements. There are 80 elements that have at least one stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively radioactive isotopes, iron is the most abundant element making up Earth, while oxygen is the most common element in the Earths crust. Chemical elements constitute all of the matter of the universe. The two lightest elements, hydrogen and helium, were formed in the Big Bang and are the most common elements in the universe. The next three elements were formed mostly by cosmic ray spallation, and are rarer than those that follow. Formation of elements with from 6 to 26 protons occurred and continues to occur in main sequence stars via stellar nucleosynthesis, the high abundance of oxygen, silicon, and iron on Earth reflects their common production in such stars. The term element is used for atoms with a number of protons as well as for a pure chemical substance consisting of a single element. A single element can form multiple substances differing in their structure, when different elements are chemically combined, with the atoms held together by chemical bonds, they form chemical compounds. Only a minority of elements are found uncombined as relatively pure minerals, among the more common of such native elements are copper, silver, gold, carbon, and sulfur. All but a few of the most inert elements, such as gases and noble metals, are usually found on Earth in chemically combined form. While about 32 of the elements occur on Earth in native uncombined forms. For example, atmospheric air is primarily a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, the history of the discovery and use of the elements began with primitive human societies that found native elements like carbon, sulfur, copper and gold. Later civilizations extracted elemental copper, tin, lead and iron from their ores by smelting, using charcoal, alchemists and chemists subsequently identified many more, almost all of the naturally occurring elements were known by 1900. Save for unstable radioactive elements with short half-lives, all of the elements are available industrially, almost all other elements found in nature were made by various natural methods of nucleosynthesis. On Earth, small amounts of new atoms are produced in nucleogenic reactions, or in cosmogenic processes. Of the 94 naturally occurring elements, those with atomic numbers 1 through 82 each have at least one stable isotope, Isotopes considered stable are those for which no radioactive decay has yet been observed. Elements with atomic numbers 83 through 94 are unstable to the point that radioactive decay of all isotopes can be detected, the very heaviest elements undergo radioactive decay with half-lives so short that they are not found in nature and must be synthesized

2.
Chemical substance
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A chemical substance is a form of matter that has constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. It cannot be separated into components by physical methods, i. e. without breaking chemical bonds. Chemical substances can be chemical elements, chemical compounds, ions or alloys, Chemical substances are often called pure to set them apart from mixtures. A common example of a substance is pure water, it has the same properties. Other chemical substances commonly encountered in pure form are diamond, gold, table salt, however, in practice, no substance is entirely pure, and chemical purity is specified according to the intended use of the chemical. Chemical substances exist as solids, liquids, gases, or plasma, Chemical substances may be combined or converted to others by means of chemical reactions. Forms of energy, such as light and heat, are not matter, a chemical substance may well be defined as any material with a definite chemical composition in an introductory general chemistry textbook. According to this definition a chemical substance can either be a chemical element or a pure chemical compound. But, there are exceptions to this definition, a substance can also be defined as a form of matter that has both definite composition and distinct properties. The chemical substance index published by CAS also includes several alloys of uncertain composition, in geology, substances of uniform composition are called minerals, while physical mixtures of several minerals are defined as rocks. Many minerals, however, mutually dissolve into solid solutions, such that a rock is a uniform substance despite being a mixture in stoichiometric terms. Feldspars are an example, anorthoclase is an alkali aluminium silicate. In law, chemical substances may include both pure substances and mixtures with a composition or manufacturing process. For example, the EU regulation REACH defines monoconstituent substances, multiconstituent substances and substances of unknown or variable composition, the latter two consist of multiple chemical substances, however, their identity can be established either by direct chemical analysis or reference to a single manufacturing process. For example, charcoal is a complex, partially polymeric mixture that can be defined by its manufacturing process. Therefore, although the chemical identity is unknown, identification can be made to a sufficient accuracy. The CAS index also includes mixtures, polymers almost always appear as mixtures of molecules of multiple molar masses, each of which could be considered a separate chemical substance. However, the polymer may be defined by a precursor or reaction

3.
Fructose
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Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion, fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847. The name fructose was coined in 1857 by the English chemist William Miller, pure, dry fructose is a very sweet, white, odorless, crystalline solid and is the most water-soluble of all the sugars. Fructose is found in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries, commercially, fructose is frequently derived from sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn. Crystalline fructose is the monosaccharide, dried, ground, and of high purity, high-fructose corn syrup is a mixture of glucose and fructose as monosaccharides. Sucrose is a compound with one molecule of glucose covalently linked to one molecule of fructose, all forms of fructose, including fruits and juices, are commonly added to foods and drinks for palatability and taste enhancement, and for browning of some foods, such as baked goods. About 240,000 tonnes of crystalline fructose are produced annually, leads to adverse health outcomes independent of any effects related to its presence as a component of total and free sugars. Crystalline fructose adopts a cyclic six-membered structure owing to the stability of its hemiketal and internal hydrogen-bonding and this form is formally called D-fructopyranose. In solution, fructose exists as a mixture of 70% fructopyranose and about 22% fructofuranose. Fructose may be fermented by yeast or bacteria. Yeast enzymes convert sugar to ethanol and carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide released during fermentation will remain dissolved in water, where it will reach equilibrium with carbonic acid, unless the fermentation chamber is left open to the air. The dissolved carbon dioxide and carbonic acid produce the carbonation in bottled fermented beverages, fructose undergoes the Maillard reaction, non-enzymatic browning, with amino acids. Because fructose exists to an extent in the open-chain form than does glucose. Fructose readily dehydrates to give hydroxymethylfurfural and this process, in the future, may become part of a low-cost, carbon-neutral system to produce replacements for petrol and diesel from plants. The primary reason that fructose is used commercially in foods and beverages, besides its low cost, is its high relative sweetness and it is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. The relative sweetness of fructose has been reported in the range of 1. 2–1.8 times that of sucrose, however, it is the 6-membered ring form of fructose that is sweeter, the 5-membered ring form tastes about the same as usual table sugar. Warming fructose leads to formation of the 5-membered ring form, therefore, the relative sweetness decreases with increasing temperature. The sweetness of fructose is perceived earlier than that of sucrose or glucose, fructose can also enhance other flavors in the system

4.
Chemical reaction
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A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Nuclear chemistry is a sub-discipline of chemistry that involves the reactions of unstable. The substance initially involved in a reaction are called reactants or reagents. Chemical reactions are characterized by a chemical change, and they yield one or more products. Reactions often consist of a sequence of individual sub-steps, the elementary reactions. Chemical reactions are described with chemical equations, which present the starting materials, end products. Chemical reactions happen at a characteristic reaction rate at a given temperature, typically, reaction rates increase with increasing temperature because there is more thermal energy available to reach the activation energy necessary for breaking bonds between atoms. Reactions may proceed in the forward or reverse direction until they go to completion or reach equilibrium, Reactions that proceed in the forward direction to approach equilibrium are often described as spontaneous, requiring no input of free energy to go forward. Non-spontaneous reactions require input of energy to go forward. Different chemical reactions are used in combinations during chemical synthesis in order to obtain a desired product, in biochemistry, a consecutive series of chemical reactions form metabolic pathways. These reactions are catalyzed by protein enzymes. Chemical reactions such as combustion in fire, fermentation and the reduction of ores to metals were known since antiquity, in the Middle Ages, chemical transformations were studied by Alchemists. They attempted, in particular, to lead into gold, for which purpose they used reactions of lead. The process involved heating of sulfate and nitrate minerals such as sulfate, alum. In the 17th century, Johann Rudolph Glauber produced hydrochloric acid and sodium sulfate by reacting sulfuric acid, further optimization of sulfuric acid technology resulted in the contact process in the 1880s, and the Haber process was developed in 1909–1910 for ammonia synthesis. From the 16th century, researchers including Jan Baptist van Helmont, Robert Boyle, the phlogiston theory was proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher. It postulated the existence of an element called phlogiston, which was contained within combustible bodies. This proved to be false in 1785 by Antoine Lavoisier who found the explanation of the combustion as reaction with oxygen from the air

5.
Ionic compound
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In chemistry, an ionic compound is a chemical compound composed of ions held together by electrostatic forces termed ionic bonding. The compound is overall, but consists of positively charged ions called cations. These can be simple ions such as the sodium and chloride in sodium chloride, or polyatomic species such as the ammonium, Ionic compounds containing hydrogen ions are classified as acids, and those containing basic ions hydroxide or oxide are classified as bases. Ionic compounds without these ions are known as salts and can be formed by acid–base reactions. Ionic compounds typically have high melting and boiling points, and are hard, as solids they are almost always electrically insulating, but when melted or dissolved they become highly conductive, because the ions are mobilized. The word ion is the Greek ἰόν, ion, going and this term was introduced by English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday in 1834 for the then-unknown species that goes from one electrode to the other through an aqueous medium. In 1913 the crystal structure of sodium chloride was determined by William Henry Bragg, many other inorganic compounds were also found to have similar structural features. Principal contributors to the development of a treatment of ionic crystal structures were Max Born, Fritz Haber, Alfred Landé, Erwin Madelung, Paul Peter Ewald. Born predicted crystal energies based on the assumption of ionic constituents, Ionic compounds can be produced from their constituent ions by evaporation, precipitation, or freezing. Reactive metals such as the alkali metals can react directly with the highly electronegative halogen gases to form an ionic product and they can also be synthesized as the product of a high temperature reaction between solids. If the ionic compound is soluble in a solvent, it can be obtained as a compound by evaporating the solvent from this electrolyte solution. This process occurs widely in nature, and is the means of formation of the evaporite minerals, insoluble ionic compounds can be precipitated by mixing two solutions, one with the cation and one with the anion in it. Because all solutions are neutral, the two solutions mixed must also contain counterions of the opposite charges. To ensure that these do not contaminate the precipitated ionic compound, if the two solutions have hydrogen ions and hydroxide ions as the counterions, they will react with one another in what is called an acid–base reaction or a neutralization reaction to form water. Alternately the counterions can be chosen to ensure that even when combined into a solution they will remain soluble as spectator ions. Molten salts will solidify on cooling to below their freezing point and this is sometimes used for the solid-state synthesis of complex ionic compounds from solid reactants, which are first melted together. In other cases the solid reactants do not need to be melted, other synthetic routes use a solid precursor with the correct stoichiometric ratio of non-volatile ions, which is heated to drive off other species. There is also an additional attractive force from van der Waals interactions which contributes only around 1–2% of the cohesive energy for small ions

6.
Chemistry
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Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter. Chemistry is sometimes called the science because it bridges other natural sciences, including physics. For the differences between chemistry and physics see comparison of chemistry and physics, the history of chemistry can be traced to alchemy, which had been practiced for several millennia in various parts of the world. The word chemistry comes from alchemy, which referred to a set of practices that encompassed elements of chemistry, metallurgy, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, mysticism. An alchemist was called a chemist in popular speech, and later the suffix -ry was added to this to describe the art of the chemist as chemistry, the modern word alchemy in turn is derived from the Arabic word al-kīmīā. In origin, the term is borrowed from the Greek χημία or χημεία and this may have Egyptian origins since al-kīmīā is derived from the Greek χημία, which is in turn derived from the word Chemi or Kimi, which is the ancient name of Egypt in Egyptian. Alternately, al-kīmīā may derive from χημεία, meaning cast together, in retrospect, the definition of chemistry has changed over time, as new discoveries and theories add to the functionality of the science. The term chymistry, in the view of noted scientist Robert Boyle in 1661, in 1837, Jean-Baptiste Dumas considered the word chemistry to refer to the science concerned with the laws and effects of molecular forces. More recently, in 1998, Professor Raymond Chang broadened the definition of chemistry to mean the study of matter, early civilizations, such as the Egyptians Babylonians, Indians amassed practical knowledge concerning the arts of metallurgy, pottery and dyes, but didnt develop a systematic theory. Greek atomism dates back to 440 BC, arising in works by such as Democritus and Epicurus. In 50 BC, the Roman philosopher Lucretius expanded upon the theory in his book De rerum natura, unlike modern concepts of science, Greek atomism was purely philosophical in nature, with little concern for empirical observations and no concern for chemical experiments. Work, particularly the development of distillation, continued in the early Byzantine period with the most famous practitioner being the 4th century Greek-Egyptian Zosimos of Panopolis. He formulated Boyles law, rejected the four elements and proposed a mechanistic alternative of atoms. Before his work, though, many important discoveries had been made, the Scottish chemist Joseph Black and the Dutchman J. B. English scientist John Dalton proposed the theory of atoms, that all substances are composed of indivisible atoms of matter. Davy discovered nine new elements including the alkali metals by extracting them from their oxides with electric current, british William Prout first proposed ordering all the elements by their atomic weight as all atoms had a weight that was an exact multiple of the atomic weight of hydrogen. The inert gases, later called the noble gases were discovered by William Ramsay in collaboration with Lord Rayleigh at the end of the century, thereby filling in the basic structure of the table. Organic chemistry was developed by Justus von Liebig and others, following Friedrich Wöhlers synthesis of urea which proved that organisms were, in theory

7.
Analytical chemistry
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Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods used to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method, qualitative analysis identifies analytes, while quantitative analysis determines the numerical amount or concentration. Analytical chemistry consists of classical, wet chemical methods and modern, classical qualitative methods use separations such as precipitation, extraction, and distillation. Identification may be based on differences in color, odor, melting point, boiling point, classical quantitative analysis uses mass or volume changes to quantify amount. Instrumental methods may be used to separate samples using chromatography, electrophoresis or field flow fractionation, then qualitative and quantitative analysis can be performed, often with the same instrument and may use light interaction, heat interaction, electric fields or magnetic fields. Often the same instrument can separate, identify and quantify an analyte, Analytical chemistry is also focused on improvements in experimental design, chemometrics, and the creation of new measurement tools. Analytical chemistry has applications to forensics, medicine, science. Analytical chemistry has been important since the days of chemistry, providing methods for determining which elements. The first instrumental analysis was flame emissive spectrometry developed by Robert Bunsen, most of the major developments in analytical chemistry take place after 1900. During this period instrumental analysis becomes progressively dominant in the field, in particular many of the basic spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques were discovered in the early 20th century and refined in the late 20th century. The separation sciences follow a similar line of development and also become increasingly transformed into high performance instruments. In the 1970s many of these began to be used together as hybrid techniques to achieve a complete characterization of samples. Lasers have been used in chemistry as probes and even to initiate. Modern analytical chemistry is dominated by instrumental analysis, many analytical chemists focus on a single type of instrument. Academics tend to focus on new applications and discoveries or on new methods of analysis. The discovery of a present in blood that increases the risk of cancer would be a discovery that an analytical chemist might be involved in. An effort to develop a new method might involve the use of a laser to increase the specificity and sensitivity of a spectrometric method. Many methods, once developed, are kept purposely static so that data can be compared over long periods of time and this is particularly true in industrial quality assurance, forensic and environmental applications

8.
Carbon
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Carbon is a chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds, three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radioactive isotope, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity, Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earths crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is the second most abundant element in the body by mass after oxygen. The atoms of carbon can bond together in different ways, termed allotropes of carbon, the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form, for example, graphite is opaque and black while diamond is highly transparent. Graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper, while diamond is the hardest naturally occurring material known, graphite is a good electrical conductor while diamond has a low electrical conductivity. Under normal conditions, diamond, carbon nanotubes, and graphene have the highest thermal conductivities of all known materials, all carbon allotropes are solids under normal conditions, with graphite being the most thermodynamically stable form. They are chemically resistant and require high temperature to react even with oxygen, the most common oxidation state of carbon in inorganic compounds is +4, while +2 is found in carbon monoxide and transition metal carbonyl complexes. The largest sources of carbon are limestones, dolomites and carbon dioxide, but significant quantities occur in organic deposits of coal, peat, oil. For this reason, carbon has often referred to as the king of the elements. The allotropes of carbon graphite, one of the softest known substances, and diamond. It bonds readily with other small atoms including other carbon atoms, Carbon is known to form almost ten million different compounds, a large majority of all chemical compounds. Carbon also has the highest sublimation point of all elements, although thermodynamically prone to oxidation, carbon resists oxidation more effectively than elements such as iron and copper that are weaker reducing agents at room temperature. Carbon is the element, with a ground-state electron configuration of 1s22s22p2. Its first four ionisation energies,1086.5,2352.6,4620.5 and 6222.7 kJ/mol, are higher than those of the heavier group 14 elements. Carbons covalent radii are normally taken as 77.2 pm,66.7 pm and 60.3 pm, although these may vary depending on coordination number, in general, covalent radius decreases with lower coordination number and higher bond order. Carbon compounds form the basis of all life on Earth

9.
Hydrogen peroxide
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Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula H 2O2. In its pure form, it is a liquid, slightly more viscous than water. Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide and it is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent and disinfectant. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or high-test peroxide, is an oxygen species and has been used as a propellant in rocketry. Its chemistry is dominated by the nature of its unstable peroxide bond, Hydrogen peroxide is unstable and slowly decomposes in the presence of base or a catalyst. Because of its instability, hydrogen peroxide is typically stored with a stabilizer in an acidic solution. Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body, enzymes that use or decompose hydrogen peroxide are classified as peroxidases. The boiling point of H 2O2 has been extrapolated as being 150.2 °C, in practice hydrogen peroxide will undergo potentially explosive thermal decomposition if heated to this temperature. It may be distilled at lower temperatures under reduced pressure. In aqueous solutions hydrogen peroxide differs from the material due to the effects of hydrogen bonding between water and hydrogen peroxide molecules. Hydrogen peroxide and water form a mixture, exhibiting freezing-point depression, pure water has a melting point of 0 °C. The boiling point of the same mixtures is also depressed in relation with the mean of both boiling points and this boiling point is 14 °C greater than that of pure water and 36.2 °C less than that of pure hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is a molecule with C2 symmetry. Although the O−O bond is a bond, the molecule has a relatively high rotational barrier of 2460 cm−1, for comparison. The increased barrier is ascribed to repulsion between the pairs of the adjacent oxygen atoms and results in hydrogen peroxide displaying atropisomerism. The molecular structures of gaseous and crystalline H 2O2 are significantly different and this difference is attributed to the effects of hydrogen bonding, which is absent in the gaseous state. Crystals of H 2O2 are tetragonal with the space group D4 4P4121, Hydrogen peroxide has several structural analogues with Hm−X−X−Hn bonding arrangements. It has the highest boiling point of this series, diphosphane and hydrogen disulfide exhibit only weak hydrogen bonding and have little chemical similarity to hydrogen peroxide

10.
Molecule
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A molecule is an electrically neutral group of two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their lack of electrical charge, however, in quantum physics, organic chemistry, and biochemistry, the term molecule is often used less strictly, also being applied to polyatomic ions. In the kinetic theory of gases, the molecule is often used for any gaseous particle regardless of its composition. According to this definition, noble gas atoms are considered molecules as they are in fact monoatomic molecules. A molecule may be homonuclear, that is, it consists of atoms of one element, as with oxygen, or it may be heteronuclear. Atoms and complexes connected by non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonds or ionic bonds, are not considered single molecules. Molecules as components of matter are common in organic substances and they also make up most of the oceans and atmosphere. Also, no typical molecule can be defined for ionic crystals and covalent crystals, the theme of repeated unit-cellular-structure also holds for most condensed phases with metallic bonding, which means that solid metals are also not made of molecules. In glasses, atoms may also be together by chemical bonds with no presence of any definable molecule. The science of molecules is called molecular chemistry or molecular physics, in practice, however, this distinction is vague. In molecular sciences, a molecule consists of a system composed of two or more atoms. Polyatomic ions may sometimes be thought of as electrically charged molecules. The term unstable molecule is used for very reactive species, i. e, according to Merriam-Webster and the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word molecule derives from the Latin moles or small unit of mass. Molecule – extremely minute particle, from French molécule, from New Latin molecula, diminutive of Latin moles mass, a vague meaning at first, the vogue for the word can be traced to the philosophy of Descartes. The definition of the molecule has evolved as knowledge of the structure of molecules has increased, earlier definitions were less precise, defining molecules as the smallest particles of pure chemical substances that still retain their composition and chemical properties. Molecules are held together by covalent bonding or ionic bonding. Several types of non-metal elements exist only as molecules in the environment, for example, hydrogen only exists as hydrogen molecule. A molecule of a compound is made out of two or more elements, a covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms

11.
Hydrogen
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Hydrogen is a chemical element with chemical symbol H and atomic number 1. With a standard weight of circa 1.008, hydrogen is the lightest element on the periodic table. Its monatomic form is the most abundant chemical substance in the Universe, non-remnant stars are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. The most common isotope of hydrogen, termed protium, has one proton, the universal emergence of atomic hydrogen first occurred during the recombination epoch. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, nonmetallic, since hydrogen readily forms covalent compounds with most nonmetallic elements, most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water or organic compounds. Hydrogen plays an important role in acid–base reactions because most acid-base reactions involve the exchange of protons between soluble molecules. In ionic compounds, hydrogen can take the form of a charge when it is known as a hydride. The hydrogen cation is written as though composed of a bare proton, Hydrogen gas was first artificially produced in the early 16th century by the reaction of acids on metals. Industrial production is mainly from steam reforming natural gas, and less often from more energy-intensive methods such as the electrolysis of water. Most hydrogen is used near the site of its production, the two largest uses being fossil fuel processing and ammonia production, mostly for the fertilizer market, Hydrogen is a concern in metallurgy as it can embrittle many metals, complicating the design of pipelines and storage tanks. Hydrogen gas is flammable and will burn in air at a very wide range of concentrations between 4% and 75% by volume. The enthalpy of combustion is −286 kJ/mol,2 H2 + O2 →2 H2O +572 kJ Hydrogen gas forms explosive mixtures with air in concentrations from 4–74%, the explosive reactions may be triggered by spark, heat, or sunlight. The hydrogen autoignition temperature, the temperature of spontaneous ignition in air, is 500 °C, the detection of a burning hydrogen leak may require a flame detector, such leaks can be very dangerous. Hydrogen flames in other conditions are blue, resembling blue natural gas flames, the destruction of the Hindenburg airship was a notorious example of hydrogen combustion and the cause is still debated. The visible orange flames in that incident were the result of a mixture of hydrogen to oxygen combined with carbon compounds from the airship skin. H2 reacts with every oxidizing element, the ground state energy level of the electron in a hydrogen atom is −13.6 eV, which is equivalent to an ultraviolet photon of roughly 91 nm wavelength. The energy levels of hydrogen can be calculated fairly accurately using the Bohr model of the atom, however, the atomic electron and proton are held together by electromagnetic force, while planets and celestial objects are held by gravity. The most complicated treatments allow for the effects of special relativity

During chemical reactions, bonds between atoms break and form, resulting in different substances with different properties. In a blast furnace, iron oxide, a compound, reacts with carbon monoxide to form iron, one of the chemical elements, and carbon dioxide.